As Musharraf's Woes Grow, Enter an Old Rival, Again

Published: April 6, 2007

As the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, wrestles with swelling public disaffection over his rule, one of his key political rivals, Benazir Bhutto, has embarked on an international campaign to revive her political standing.

In recent weeks, Ms. Bhutto, 53, a former prime minister and the leader of the Pakistan People's Party who has lived in exile since 1999, has stepped up her criticism of the Taliban who operate in the remote regions of the country. She has sought to marginalize Islamist political parties from an opposition party alliance that has emerged in anticipation of elections later this year.

Seeking to assure Washington that she would be a staunch ally, she has suggested that as an elected leader, she would be more credible in selling antiterrorism efforts to the public than General Musharraf, who has been criticized by Washington for a mixed record in combating the Taliban and Al Qaeda within Pakistan's borders. She has even brought her campaign here, to the capital of her nation's archrival: India.

''I don't think our present regime has been able to dissociate my country's name with terrorism, and I believe a popular democratic government can,'' she said at a dinner attended by members of the Indian political and corporate elite here in the India's capital on a Saturday night in late March.

In Washington, Ms. Bhutto has hired a lobbying firm to help sell that same message. In March, she wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post directed at the Washington establishment. In February, she spoke to the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Ms. Bhutto has lived in self-imposed exile as a result of a long litany of corruption charges that still hound her. Today she divides her time between London and Dubai, and appears ever more intent on preparing the ground for a return to Pakistan, though many obstacles remain.

''Her strategy seems to be to try and persuade the international community that changes in the way Pakistan is governed -- changes that would eventually favor her -- are also good for the war against terror,'' said Husain Haqqani, a former adviser to Ms. Bhutto who is now director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University.

For now at least, it seems unlikely that the Bush administration will heed Ms. Bhutto's argument. The White House remains committed to General Musharraf, even through the latest protests against his administration -- protests that began ostensibly against his suspension of the chief justice, but have since come to represent growing frustration against military rule.

Analysts in Washington and Islamabad point out that the White House remains skeptical of Ms. Bhutto's capacity, questioning her authority over Pakistan's military and intelligence services and troubled by charges that she and her husband illegally gained millions of dollars in deals with people who did business with the government when she was in power. (She successfully fought two money laundering cases in Pakistan, though she continues to face charges in a separate case in a court in Switzerland.)

''I'm not sure if there's any amount of charm or orchestration on Benazir's part that will change this,'' Craig Cohen, deputy chief of staff at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in an e-mail message. ''Something major would have to happen in Pakistan for the Bush administration to give up on Musharraf.''

More to the point, Mr. Cohen said, there is little reason to believe that having Ms. Bhutto at the helm would fundamentally alter the hold of the military and the intelligence services on the state machinery. ''Even after free elections, the military will still call the shots on national security issues,'' he said. ''Firing the manager only gets you so far.''

How the Democrats in Washington will respond to General Musharraf in the coming months is also uncertain. One hint came in early March, when four members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including its chairman, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware and a candidate for president, wrote to the general, warning that without the return of the two key opposition leaders, Ms. Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, ''it will be difficult for the international community to regard the 2007 elections as a true expression of democracy.''

Mr. Sharif's government was ousted by General Musharraf during a coup in 1999. He was eventually pardoned and exiled to Saudi Arabia. Neither he nor Ms. Bhutto was permitted to take part in the last elections, in 2002.

On occasion, General Musharraf has said that Ms. Bhutto could return, if she were willing to face corruption charges. In a step that added to speculation that a deal on her return might be in the works, the government said Wednesday that it was abolishing the federal division that had been investigating the foreign assets and offshore bank accounts of some politicians, including her.

Still, General Musharraf has given no word, publicly at least, that he is in a mood to bargain. ''There are no back-channel negotiations,'' he said in an interview with Karachi-based HUM TV in February. ''The parties, which are here, will take part in the elections. But those who are abroad would remain there. This is the reality, and there is no deal, no change.''

Ms. Bhutto's latest approach has been as notable for what she has chosen to say as for what she has left unsaid. Her criticism of General Musharraf in recent weeks, when he has faced daunting public protests, has been appreciably mild. Her party has not turned out its supporters in huge numbers in the latest protests.

But Ms. Bhutto's hunger to return to political life could not have been more obvious at a dinner here last month. She wooed that audience with paeans to democracy and promises of peace. Let there be a summit meeting, she proposed, of Indian and Pakistani leaders on Aug. 15, the anniversary of their bloody births, for an accord that brings ''permanent stability and prosperity.''

''I believe Indo-Pakistan relations can be creatively reinvented,'' she said.

Familial ties, and particularly familial sacrifice, play extremely well in this part of the world, and Aroon Purie, the editor of the newsweekly India Today, which sponsored the dinner, deployed them frothily in Ms. Bhutto's favor. Born into Pakistan's ruling dynasty, Ms. Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed by Pakistan's last military government. Ms. Bhutto served two terms as prime minister, becoming the first woman to lead a Muslim country.

Mr. Purie introduced her as a woman born into a family of martyrs, describing her as ''now all set for a democratic homecoming.''

Photo: Benazir Bhutto's supporters protested recently against Gen. Pervez Musharraf, though she has muted her criticisms to ease her path to elections. (Photo by Nadeem Khawer/European Pressphoto Agency)